Deep Space Industries (DSI) will formally announce their asteroid mining plans at a press event at 10 am PST (1 pm EST) Tuesday in Santa Monica, California, an event that will be webcast live. The DSI team does include some familiar names for those who have followed past space entrepreneurial efforts, including Rick Tumlinson, chairman of DSI; and David Gump, who is CEO. The company’s team also features Geoffrey Notkin, star of the TV show “Meteorite Men”, although his role with the company isn’t specified.

DSI plans to follow a path similar to Planetary Resources, with a fleet of small spacecraft to prospect asteroids. FireFlies, weighing 25 kilograms, will launch starting in 2015 on two- to six-month missions to study asteroids, while 32-kilogram DragonFly spacecraft will launch starting in 2016 on two- to four-year missions to return samples weighing up to twice as much as the spacecraft itself.

Those sample return missions will be followed by full-scale resource extraction efforts. DSI says it has a “patent-pending technology” called the MicroGravity Foundry, a 3-D printer that can convert raw asteroid (presumably metallic) material into complex metal parts. The company is also interested in extracting volatile materials from asteroids to use as propellant—a key focus of Planetary Resources as well—and has an NDA with an unspecified “aerospace company” to discuss how to potentially work together to use such propellants to refuel communications satellites. (A problem here is that while some asteroids are rich in water ice and similar volatiles, many satellites use hydrazine in their maneuvering thrusters.)

While the press release goes into great detail about their long-term plans for missions and the various resources that can be obtained from asteroids, they say virtually nothing about the company’s finances. The company doesn’t disclose how much money it has raised or who its investors are. (By contrast, Planetary Resources emphasized at its announcement the A-list investors it has, including Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, although it didn’t disclose how much they raised.) DSI does state in its release that it “is looking for customers and sponsors who want to be a part of creating this new space economy,” and mentions it’s open to the idea of corporate sponsorships for individual FireFly missions.

If DSI is serious about starting to launch spacecraft in 2015, it presumably has already laid significant groundwork, including establishing facilities, hiring engineers and other staff, and making at least initial contacts with launch services providers, details missing from its press release. How much progress they’ve made in those areas that they’re willing to reveal, particularly at the press conference later today, will make it clear how serious a competitor they are to Planetary Resources. Both companies, though, face the challenges of making progress in a field—asteroid mining—that still seems like science fiction.

2 comments to Another asteroid mining company announces its plans

Near the end of the press conference, DSI mentioned that they’re only 6 months old at this point, with no permanent HQ and only early-stage investors, none of whom were named. I don’t personally think that precludes them from accomplishing great things in the long term, but I agree with Jeff that 2015 goes past an ‘agressive’ timeline into ‘patently unlikely’ territory.

There is no denying that upstart space mining corporations such as Planetary Resources and DSI are setting humanity up for many future advancements in space. The question that both Jeff Faust and Chris Radcliff raise about the financial structuring is a very important one. Both companies already have ideas about how to begin locating and determining the potential resource(s) of many available near earth objects, as well as the the ability to take and return sample sections, but how are they going to make all the initial R&D profitable? While it is believed that a single 500 meter asteroid could contain more platinum then the world has ever mined (NBC News), you can only collect and haul a certain amount of material back to Earth. One easy example of this NASA’s proposed OSIRIS-Rex mission. The missions project cost is estimated at one billion dollars to return with only 2 oz. of material. With platinum currently trading around $1,500 per oz. it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that this type of plan is unsustainable.